Certainly. Anyone can be wrong. I'm wrong all the time. That's part of life.

I'm
also not concerned with 'tone' -- with one exception -- because you
should call people out in your own voice and not someone elses, we need
more voices hitting more notes not a choir of tenors all hitting the
same damn note. My exception? OLOFL's sexism is well known and I
did notice that Erin Burnett gets a special kind of attack different
from the men.

Today OLOTL accuses the
journalists of many things including "cherry picking." He's the one
who's cherry picking. Susan Rice went on television six days after the
September 11, 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. She went on
multiple programs. Journalists have to condense. That is not the same
thing as "cherry picking." They're dealing with the totality of Susan
Rice's presentation.

Some try to argue she's
the messenger. Yes, I believe she was confirmed to be that. I believe
that's what an ambassador does. But the American people don't give a
damn if she was just the messenger or not. She went on television and
spoke about Benghazi. She was flat out wrong. Now if anyone wants to
argue that Susan Rice is incompetent, he might get some takers. But to
argue that she couldn't help it and blah blah blah? No. That ship
sailed a long time ago. She was going on every network Sunday morning.

CBS' Face The Nation, NBC's Meet The Press, ABC's This Week, CNN's State of the Union, Fox News Sunday
-- am I missing one? All links go to transcripts -- Fox News was smart
enough to put their video and transcript together. She presented the
same bad talking points over and over. Five live interviews that
morning? She should have known her facts before she gave the first one,
she should have known her facts and been up to date before the first
interview (which dismisses the claim that Saturday evening a new view
emerged and poor Susan Rice woke up Sunday morning, took out her curlers
and stepped in front of the camera). She used "spontaneous" in every
interview (Somerby attacks Anderson for noting "spontaneous"). Susan
Rice was the messenger because the State Dept wasn't going to lie.
Susan Rice shouldn't have been on TV. It should have been Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton or someone else at the State Dept, Vice President
Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, etc. Susan Rice?
Please. The US Ambassador to the United Nations?

That
was above her head. If she's stupid enough to think she can ace it,
then she's stupid enough to earn the blame for her idiotic statements
which -- even in the official White House timeline -- are now out of
date and wrong.

I've done press junkets. As I
go from interview to interview, I have someone telling me if any
information has changed and I'm revising my remarks to include that --
and that's the entertainment industry. Susan Rice should have known the
information that came in on Saturday before she spoke on Sunday. If no
one bothered to inform her, that's also on her because she should have
demanded it when she agreed to do the programs, "I need to know every
update that comes in between now and when I step on camera."

Is
that hard? Well so is life. And if you're going to go on TV to
speak about an attack that claimed the lives of 4 Americans (Sean Smith,
Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty and Chris Stevens) and speak on behalf of
the US government, your job is to be prepared.

She wasn't or she lied. She was incompetent or she lied.

Actually, she may have been incompetent and a liar.

I see this as a lie, ". . . what we understand to be the assessment at present" (Face The Nation,
similar words used on other programs). That's a lie. That's,
according to the White House, the assessment early Saturday afternoon as
she got a briefing. It wasn't Saturday evening's assessment. It
certainly wasn't Sunday morning's assessment.

Again,
if you're going on TV to do live interviews and you are representing
the US government, you need the most current information. She didn't do
the work required. Maybe she wasn't smart enough to know what work was
required? Maybe her personal time Saturday and Sunday was more
important to her? I have no idea. But she went on TV Sunday morning
and gave out-of-date information according to the White House's version
of events.

She should have cared a little less
about protecting the White House and a little more about serving the
American people. Barack Obama is not paying her, the American people
are. She works for the American people and she takes an oath to the
Constitution, not to a office, not to a person.

She
wants to be Secretary of State and Barack wants her to as well. If
nominated, she'll be jumping over Senator John Kerry which should raise
eyebrows considering her awful record in the last four years in terms of
public diplomacy. And that's the only record she has. Yet she's going
to be put in charge of the US State Dept which is in charge of Iraq?
This liar or incompetent or both is going to be put over the billions of
dollars the US is still pouring into Iraq? America needs someone
trustworthy in that position. Susan Rice is a joke to many American
people. She's not up to the job and she comes in as a joke. This is
how Barack Obama wants to waste his time post-election?

I
thought the second term was going to be about getting things done. I
thought this was the term Barack was going to get to work. So choosing
between a qualified nominee (John Kerry) who is an automatic approved by
the Senate nominee and between the unqualified Susan Rice who already
has senators opposed to her, Barack's going to waste America's time with
Susan Rice? (Because he's a senator, John Kerry's an automatic
confirmation. That's how it goes historically. The Senate rushes to
confirm its current and former colleagues.) So America's going to have
to suffer through weeks of drama because Barack can't stop fixating on
Susan Rice? And let's be clear that, if Rice had any integrity, she'd
look at the situation herself, realize what a liability she is and
announce she was not interested in the post.

The phrase the White House and its employees need to learn is "for the good of the country."